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Adult Film Industry Moving To HD DVD
profet writes "One of the heavyweights in the war between BlueRay and HD DVD has chosen its format. Various members of the adult film industry have decided on HD-DVD. The article says the reasons seem to be based primarily on cost of manufacturing. History has shown that the porn industry can be a driving factor for technology, as it was in deciding for the VHS format over BetaMax." Heise reports that US BlueRay press plants are refusing the adult industry's business (in German).
Too much detail can be a bad thing ... unless you're into that sort of thing.
In the previous discussions about pornography decided the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray battle, I'd always said that the porn industry was fully capable of going both ways, and a few others besides (with the double-entendre wholly intended).
However, hearing that Sony itself has been pressuring the porn industry away from the Blu-Ray format, it seems they've shot themselves in the foot and mooted their brand from competition.
I suspect they want to keep the format that is used in their gaming system free of purient-interest content and not be a portal for pornography, preserving it as a "kid friendly" device. And with a limited number of facilities able to produce BD disks compared to DVD houses refitted for HD-DVD production, that scarcity allows Sony more control. Perhaps Sony is still stinging with the parental backlash against kids putting porn on their PSPs. How many more PSPs to adults did that revelation sell again?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
In popular usage, a computer drive is commonly called a disk with the k while the audio and video medium is usually called a disc with the c.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1354224
http://www.stedmans.com/MTFeaturePrint.cfm/1324
You mean the mythical VHS versus Beta where the "better" format lost, or the _real_ VHS vs. Beta war where the better format (longer tapes, for one thing) actually won but where people keep propogating the "Beta was better than VHS!" myth?
The format wars have been decided.
It really is VHS vs. BetaMax all over again. And it's even Sony again pushing the more expensive and less open option!
In the VHS vs Beta days you couldn't get high quality porn for free. I want HD DVD to win as I have invested in it but I just don't think this will be a big push for team HD DVD.
BD already won, didnt you read anything over past 7 days?
So in other words, Blu-ray is...erm Fucked.
-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ *** http://www.mountainfort.com *** +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-
The cat(house) is out of the bag now. This was the news many people that have been following the so-called "war" have been waiting for: which side will the porn industry go with?
Granted, this is just one production company, however it can be assured that more are to follow. Personally, I don't really care which side wins; with the possibility of holographic storage so close in the future (~5-10 years, if industry estimations are correct) I most likely will be sticking with DVD until then.
Despite the news from the industry tho, I wouldn't exactly call this a nail in the coffin...I will, however, say that this brings us one step closer to the end, regardless of which format "wins". I like that blu-ray has more capacity...I'm an extra's and commentary-track fiend, so more space means potentially more content for me to view on less discs...then again, HD-DVD is FAR cheaper both in purchasing and manufacturing.
They both have their plus and minus to go with them...for me, a progressive scan DVD player is plenty fine for now. I'll wait until the "next big thing" rather than "the next medium thing" to shift what format I collect movies in.
Living With a Nerd
HD-DVD: It's good enough for pr0n; it's good enough for you!
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Whew! Thanks for this news, Slashdot! Now I can finally feel confident buying an HD-DVD player!
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
1.Create rootkit
2.Create new HD Disc spec
3.Shoot feet
4.??????
5.Profit
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Sony blew their chances.
But a semi-serious question though: Have sales of porn movies decressed with the greater availability of online content?
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
Entertainment, such as games and porn, is about content and not the media.
Entertainment providers care about whatever works and protects their work.
So long as one option is available, if the other one isn't, no one is losing sleep over it. It's almost a non-story, except for outsiders.
Even though it might be true that porn pushes the industry, I salute Sony for not wanting any on their Blue Rays
PUFF !
With the porn industry behind HD-DVD now, there is little doubt that the HD-DVD format will be hacked into oblivion. Nothing inspires developers more than the possability of free porn....
Double entendre intended
Porn is a multi-billion dollar industry so this is a big deal, and speaks volumes about winning the "standard" race.
You have millions of Xbox 360 owners who can now watch porn on their Xbox's. That will, most definitely, be a big deal and selling point, between friends. I'm sure the porn industry will use this, tie-in, as a selling point too. Gaming meets porn is a natural IMHO. It's the next step in enterspankment. Yes, I have coined a new a catchy phrase!
It's going to be sweet to use my 360 remote a a virtual dildo, but it'd be better if it worked like the Nintendo nunchuk, so it could sense, exactly, how I'm moving it. Maybe that'll be an addon pack? There's so many ways to go with this, actually.
Seriously speaking, the costs are cheaper to produce HD-DVD. Standalone players are half the price of Blue Ray and the quality is the same, to the naked eye. Anyone who can tell the difference between 1080i/p is full of it and it's more dependent on the tv, cable, etc., than which HD format you're using.
This really is a big deal, in terms of, the new format war.
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
I've got Blu-Balls!
Let me put it this way: It's like a real woman. Just because you can whip out a microscope and examine every inch of her body (every pimple, every blemish, every hair), doesn't mean you do. She's there, she's naked, presumably she wants to fuck you, so why are you counting the hairs in her landing strip?
Same thing with HD. Yes, if you pause it and zoom in, it may look much worse. But you've got a giant HDTV and some nice surround sound; again, why count the hairs in her landing strip when you can just sit back and enjoy the show?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Actually both articles read more like he-said she-said. No where is anyone quoting Sony as not allowing adult content. I suspect this will all turn out to be
rumor and untrue motivated by a desire to swing the HD industry one way or the other.
The adult content industry is much more sensitive to distribution cost than major studios. Odd they are only now complaining when Blu-Ray seems to finally have the upper hand.
Letter To Iran
"HD-DVD" will win over "Blu-Ray" because of the name of the tech anyway...
Average consumer: "WTF is Blue Ray?"
Answer: "It lets you watch high-definition DVDs."
Average consumer: "Is there a Red Ray?"
Average consumer: "WTF is HD-DVD?"
Answer: "It lets you watch high-definition DVDs."
Average consumer: "Sorry I was such a dumbass."
Do you know how long I've been waiting to see highly defined zits and cigarette burns on the actresses' asses?
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
For a while it was said frequently that the porn industry was on the leading edge of web techniques with ecommerce and especially the development of techniques for popup windows. But where are teh web2.0 porn sites? Or aren't those types of websites particularly good for profits?
Someone has their facts wrong. Beta was the preferred media for porn during most of the early days of the VCR since its pause worked. VHS porn didn't even come close to catching up with Beatamax until after the 4 (and 6) head VHS players were popular. Years after the entire rental business had gone to VHS, there were more Beta tapes made because of porn and studio use. That was the case until just a few years before the introduction of the DVD.
Is there anything it can't do?
'Nuff said
Porn - the great equalizer.
/I see see a sig coming
// oops no pun intended
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
HD-DVD DVDA! I can hardly wait.
(Anyone who doesn't know the reference should watch this)
The VHS camp simply purchased more TITLES, about 3 to one, versus Betamax.
Most people could not see the quality difference between the two formats.
The VHS format had more product to watch and won in the marketplace. Any
other thoughts were superflous.
I had both types of machines. I even had laser discs a couple of years later. Yes, I was there.
Sony still doesn't learn from its mistakes?
Jonathanjk.com
Porn might have been a deciding factor in beta vs. VHS, but that was before the almighty internet tubes. I guess most porn people have comes in handy divx or similar formats. Heck i'd fell bad paying for porn, supporting that industry.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
listing to 'this week in tech', last week and someone (Leo / Dvorak) was saying they visited the HD-DVD booth who's rep's were all about how movies can be filmed with 'skinable features'.. and gave the example of Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift where they got to select the color of the cars....
I think Leo went on to predict the Porn industry will win the race with this feature alone...
Slashdotters will be able to superimpose their own face over Ron Jeremy's and finally get to see themselves (albeit a hairy version) do nasty things to girlz.
I support the new "Goo-Ray" standard for the Pr0n industry.
There may be merit to this argument, but it's unlikely. People get their porn on the Internet now - not so much on DVD. There is still a market, but it's much less significant. So, while an interesting fact, it's reasonable to assume that it may not apply today.
So does this mean that the PS3 is a kiddy system because it won't actually have any "adult media" while the XBOX360 can?
porn can be put onto Sony PCs.
Film at 11.
Work Safe Porn
And so the format wars were won.
Does anyone else think it's odd that a Japanese company doesn't want porn on their format and an American one does. That's absolutely oppposite of what you'd expect. Well forget players, now people REALLY REALLY REALLY aren't going to upgrade to Vista if they know it can't play HD-DVDs as it supposedly isn't able to at the moment.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Rename title of story to "HD-DVD wins 96% of next-gen DVD market share".
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Damn, you beat me to the obligatory Ron Jeremy reference by 8 minutes.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex. I could pinch them."
Marvin the Martian
A secondhand report of one guy's anecdote that unnamed sources say that Sony is discouraging the adult industry from using Blu-Ray. Oh yeah, stop the presses already.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
As a Republican I would like to publicly state my strong opposition to HD-DVD.
If we let HD-DVD win, we let the pornographers win.
Average consumer: "WTF is Blue Ray?"
That's not what Jessica Simpson would say.
Jessica: Blue Ray! I totally don't know what that means, but I want it!
Fixing it for you
"HD-DVD" will win over "Blu-Ray" because of the name of the tech anyway...
Average consumer: "WTF is Blue Ray?"
Answer: "It lets you watch high-definition DVDs."
Average consumer: "Is there a Red Ray?"
Average consumer: "WTF is HD-DVD?"
Answer: "It lets you watch high-definition porn DVDs."
Average consumer: "Sorry I was such a dumbass."
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Oh! I finally get it ...
So that's why it's called an X-Box!
I'm suspecting that feature will land in the same category as multiangle DVD's. Yeah there are some pornos that use the technology, but I'm suspecting the logistics of coordinating X number of cameras instead of one is the reason. Also, I bet if you went into a porno store and asked everybody in the place if they knew about the multiangle technology, I'm betting the response would be less than 1 in 10.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I guess the adult film industry finally heard Dvorak telling everyone how excited he was that HD-DVD software would be able to replace a star's face in a movie with a picture of your own. I can't find a source backing this up, but I've heard it from his (often loud and obnoxious) mouth a few times.
Finally, every Slashdotter can be seen with a naked woman.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
well, i remember the fact that the psp could get on the internet and people called it the "playstation pornable" and stuff like that, so i can understand sony being paranoid about blu-ray porn, but...telling them 'no' wasn't probably the solution either, haha... i have no interest in looking up anything to support the following, but wouldn't more people these days get there porn fixes online than through dvd? it's a different age, much different than beta max and vhs...feel free to ignore, i'm not going research porn sales vs. porn downloads
I'll be the first to say it...
"What a load..."
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
Porn killed the Betamax, and now it appears they will do the same to BlueRay.
Sony could not understand way back when that people would actually want to watch movies with their VCR's and the first BetaMax units had a one hour capacity. OOPS!
Now, with BlueRay, it costs to much to mass produce copies, and HD DVD actually downgrades gracefully to play on non HD players. I dont know why there was even a contest.
Microsoft should have taught Sony that the best product NEVER wins in the marketplace. The easiest product to live gain access to and live with daily, is the product that wins.
With Porn backing HD-DVD, BlueRay will soon become a novelty.
In the Beta / VHS days, there was no other method to recieve porn. Today, most porn is seen via the internet, so it's impact on the HD/Blu disk is not as important as it was back then. It will still have some impact, but I don't think it will be as big as the big movie distributers (like Disney) will have.
"She's there, she's naked, presumably she wants to fuck you"
You must be new here.
Why else do you think pr0n technology makes headlines around here?
And with a limited number of facilities able to produce BD disks compared to DVD houses refitted for HD-DVD production, that scarcity allows Sony more control.
And there is the problem, that also affects things like DRM: trying to control too much. The industry is so intent on controlling everything they own and not allow the indivual fair use, that they seem more ready to shoot themselves in the foot than letting have other people have any sense of using it a way that makes it worth while.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
A better title should be "one studio commits to releasing 4 titles and hasn't even officially dropped Blu-ray". Wait to show fanboy bias, Slashdot.
bash-3.00$ uname -a
SunOS panda 5.10 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2
"Hey, you got yourself those glued HD-DVD+BlueRay discs from Warner! What's this then? Jurassic Poke?? Forrest Gimp?"
"Umm..."
"Dude. This is not glue on your discs."
My other SIG is a Sauer.
Isn't that HD-DVDA?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
This has been on /. before, but you can't call the war based on this.
When VHS/Beta came around, there was no real way to watch that kind of content at home before. That was HUGE. Right now, that exists in the form of VHS and DVDs.
People wanted VHS. Going from nothing to a way to record TV or watch movies at home when you want was HUGE. DVD->Whatever is just going to higher quality. There is no massive benefit like before.
Then there is the computer factor. You know where I could watch high quality content without buying a $500+ player? My computer. You know where I can find tons of FREE content? My computer. The only competition that VHS had was "those kind" of theaters in the "bad part of town". People already are in the privacy of their homes
Then there is the higher quality is not better argument.
Let's face is, no one cares that much about this battle. It's almost NOTHING LIKE VHS/BETA. Same field (home video), same circumstance (two competing formats), same players (Sony on one side, this time with other people). But the reasons why people will choose a format are different. VHS was longer. Blu-ray is longer, but but since HD-DVD isn't limited to 60min like Beta was that isn't as much of an issue.
Can't compare the situations. Doesn't hold up.
Random theory: Blu-ray will win in end. Why? Cooler name. I have no idea.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
"Porn, like gaming, pushes tech adoption."
This gets stated and restated on Slashdot all the time, usually by the same handful of people - but does anyone have any actual proof from anywhere that doesn't cater to a 15- to 25-year-old audience? It seems like yet another wikiality.
VHS could record for twice as long as Beta, which is very likely what won that particular format war.
Oh, and you did hear about what's been going on with the population of elephants in Africa, I assume?
#DeleteChrome
My keyboard is not happy about this announcement.
I'm sorry, but I must disagree. Based on your example of two possibilities, Blu-Ray will win.
Because there is no known universe where the average consumer makes an apology for being a dumbass.
... the future is probably in near-free downloads of low-cost production entertainment. How they ever make profit is anyone's guess, but even when you reduce/remove the plot, the professional editing, the unionized actors, the marketing department, and the copyright lawyers, the customers weren't complaining anyways.
And face it, how many people want to provide evidence of their pleasure-sampling? Having an HD-DVD just increases the risk unless you watch it on a tiny screen in the secluded basement.
I never have to pay any attention to another format wars discussion unless there's porn on Blu-Ray.
Porn is such an incredibly powerful driving force that I'm perpetually surprised at how often it's ignored and avoided. Porn proved that the internet is a viable and profitable commercial marketplace. Where once were consumers using the web as a brochure are now ordering anything online with reckless abandon. It was porn that drove most all of the technologies that are common. As already pointed out, porn helped to decide the Beta vs. VHS.
And what's more, it's Sony backing blu-ray... I'm glad to see it happen. Now if we can just get the HD-DVD people convinced that the REAL decider will be (just as in the VHS v. Betamax) that the consumer will want to be able to shift format from Blu-Ray to HD-DVD which will necessitate reduction of restrictions or the sanctioning of certain circumvention technologies. If they believe that's what it'll take to over-take the other, that might be reason enough to give the consumer what he needs.
The discs must be easier to clean.
... we have a winner in the format war!
So say we all
No Blu-ray disk manufacturer would make their disks because Sony doesn't want porn on Blu-ray (just as with Betamax).
Sony seems to love championing formats that are dead in the water.
I have to run off now and rip my cd collection to ATRAC.
Why has parent been modded to 5 Insightful? The sony hating has turned into blindnes. I can never recall people having the following conversation (WITH CD-ROMs around)
6 6588/ shows the released titles on Blu Ray and HD-DVD.
Average consumer: "WTF is a DVD" Answer: "It lets you watch whole movies on a single disk" Average consumer: "Is there an EVD?"
Also... HD-DVD is misleading, the HD-DVD disk may be used to store non HD information, eg a game disk = consumer confusion. So rather, it is HD-DVD which is more misleading than Blu Ray. As Blu-Ray does have a blue ray, as to speak.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=7
Everyone knows what DVD is already. DVD = movies to people (games and audio availability on DVD aren't a thing most care about). They also know what HD is, hell it's to the point that I see high quality full spectrum lights advertised as "High Definition" (really, it's on the box). Thus HD-DVD is a self evident name to people.
...pr0n and gaming pushed the entire world.
I think if the movies are going to be HD they shold be 720p60 or 1080p60 because most HD screens are progressive and *moving* parts should have hihjer framerates...
"...because Sony doesn't want porn on Blu-ray (just as with Betamax)."
dwa-ha-ha-ha
That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
I have to wonder if it really is true, the citation in tfa is third-hand.
How could any CEO make such a decision for their company?
It directly affects their revenues. I don't believe it is true.
"Porn, like gaming, pushes tech adoption."
OK, so when are we going to see naked penguins?
---
Oh, Lord. My slashword for today is "gushed".
The industry is wildly exaggerating their size:t imates_.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/04/media_overes
Go figure...
How is HD-DVD misleading when it stands for High Density Digital Versatile Disk?
Yes. It can also stand for High Definition Digital Video Disk, as well as Haughty Dumbass Decrying Versimilitude Debate.
I would like to call for the desistance of calling HD-DVD "technically inferior" on the simple-minded basis of its only very limitedly lower theoretical storage capacity. This seems to be a very popular thing to do by people who like to think they know what they are talking about. However, it is actually stupidly simplistic and inaccurate.
Blu-ray is capable of having some more storage capacity. Meanwhile, HD-DVD disks are cheaper to make, do not scratch as easily, are more backwards compatible, have a more capable and author friendly development environment/UI system, more advanced video encoding algorithms (as of at least very recently), and support the highest available resolution available (1080p)!
Apparently, what people mean by "technically superior" is "has a little more storage capacity". I prefer my way of looking at things -- HD-DVD is "better" and was more intelligently designed because it has all the advantages above over BluRay. It appears that Sony reinvented the wheel for negligible gain, yet many-fold setback.
...Based on the headline alone.
For those who need the dots connected:
-The price of the PS3 was pushed WAY up by the choice to use a Blu-Ray player.
-The total resulting cost of the PS3 was $500-$600. Thus they cost between $100 and $350 more than their competitors in the Wii and XBox 360.
-The only way Sony could have any real hope that people would consider the PS3 to be worth its exorbitant cost, would be for people to want to buy Blu-Ray players. The PS3 would then be an excellent value, as it's both a relatively affordable Blu-Ray player AND plays games.
-For people to want to buy Blu-Ray players, Blu-Ray would have to emerge as the victor in the format war against HD-DVD.
-In the previous format wars, it has become clear that the successful format is whichever format supports pornography. Beta and LaserDisc both banned pornography from their format, and both formats failed.
-Sony has now made it clear that they don't want porn on Blu-Ray, thereby ensuring the failure of the Blu-Ray format, thereby ensuring that the PS3 is nothing but an overpriced game system (with few good games released, and few exclusive games scheduled) that has no additional value as a "cheap" Blu-Ray player.
RIP PS3.
Multiangle porn is a killer feature, though. It's not so much for a "normal" movie, but for watching porn? People would clamor for this. "I really wish I wasn't staring at his hairy ass, I want to see it from the other side"
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
... because everyone (or at least Sony) knows that watching people blow each other brains out, that is using bullets, knives, chainsaws and the like, as opposed to, uh, the word of mouth, is a whole lot healthier.
Thanks Sony for making the choice an even easier to make. I have a Panasonic 50PV60A that is in dire need of more HD content, other than the FTA stuff we get here in Australia.
ISO certified == THX certified
It's not the end of the world... it's the first year that these high capacity disks came out, so Sony will probably change their mind about pron as the years go on. And DVD will still be orders of magnitude larger than either HD-DVD or Blu-ray so it's not as huge of a decisive factor as for VHS vs Betamax.
Blu-Ray phones home though doesn't it? As in, the player has to be connected to the Internet and reports what you are watching and obtains updated crypto keys etc?
I can't see many people wanting their pr0n viewing habits tracked by Sony. Or anyone for that matter.
Well the format war is over, HD-DVD wins. Looks like it's safe to buy a HD-DVD player now, once the price dump down another 100 bucks, or 400.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Only on slashdot will a story about high-definition porn devolve into an argument about the superiority of star-wired token rings vs. Ethernet.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Dude, when was the last time you watched a new porno? Ron Jeremy is long gone (in stardom at least). There are many more hung-like-elephants (and shaved!) people taking his place inside women.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Without getting into the misleading Porn Bigger Than Hollywood debate, if the porn industry does go for HD-DVD then it will be a bonus for the HD camp.
Just by having people buy HD players to watch porn means that they are quite likely to buy mainstream too.
I think back to the late 70's and seem to remember that the vhs vs beta debate was "settled" because most of the porn industry adopted VHS instead of beta. LOL...wouldn't it be funny if it happened all over again? Who says the porn industry isn't good for something? Heck, I don't have much use for porn anymore, but I bet if it wasn't for the amount it rakes in for the computer industry, everything connected with the web would be more expensive.
I'm not sure 45 GB is going to be enough for HD. A 1920x1080 movie has exactly six times as many pixels per frame as a 720x480 DVD movie. I'm no expert on video compression, but shouldn't it require six times as many bytes to store HD video at the same compression rate? That means you'd need 51 GB just to store the same length movie as a dual-layer DVD. I already have to have four disks to store one season of a TV series. If we're going to go to all the trouble to upgrade, shouldn't we be a bit more forward looking?
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
Obligatory: Now that's what I call a money shot!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Well it appears that blu-ray is falling behind and will be soon be dead. With HD-DVD porn and a hack for an affordable HD-DVD Drive.
It comes down to the basics... Money and Sex.
HD-DVD has won.
Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
horray for realistic porn, better than the real thing, k
You can shoot yourself in the same foot multiple times.
With the majority of the movie industries supporting Bluray and the adult movie industry supporting HD-DVD, isn't this just more motivation to get a player that plays both instead of having to choose between one or the other? I think this just means that the PS3 is not going to be the primary video player for households that get porn in disk format.
Along with other genitalia, but really, is porn THAT nessesarily dependant on absolute clarity?
Pornography is largely fantasy to begin with. It is dependant on imagery at best. It is hardly dependant on detail.
It's like the Bill Hicks "Hairy Man Ass Channel" joke. Do you really need to see *that* level of detail?
Except for quality of direction, and level of quality, do you need to be able to view spermatozoa @720i to be able to judge a money shot?
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
That's it then, Blu-Ray is official dead.
Yes, complete with 5 channels of moaning surround sound. Personally, I was backing Blue-Ray, because it supports 7 channels of moaning until you're blue in the face surround sound.
... company. Japanese society has one of the most warped views on sexuality (I mean this in a good way :), and yet a Japanese company is anti-porn? That's just too funny.
The notion that porn was available only on VHS is entirely myth. I lived in New York City during the height of the VHS/Beta wars. At that time, VHS had only a modest lead. Video stores had large beta and VHS departments (these were video sales stores; rental stores did not become common until later on). And both the beta and VHS departments had substantial porn sections. Videos, no matter what the rating, were quite expensive, selling for close to $100 (which was real money in those days)
Sony had chosen to go after the high-end market, a practice that had been successful with other items in their audio and video equipment line. Sony imagined that VCRs would be used mostly for TV time-shifting, with sales of modest numbers of (expensive) prerecorded videos to enthusiasts. Sony players tended to be the videophile favorite, because they usually got the hot new features such as stable still display and hifi sound a bit earlier, with VHS catching up a few months later. The cheaper VHS machines sold to the more budget-conscious buyers. What Sony failed to anticipate was the emergence of rental outlets as a major market force. The first rental stores that I saw carried both beta and VHS (and yes, all ratings in both formats). But since the cheaper VHS machines were a bit more common, they stocked VHS a bit more heavily. Consumers noted this that the rental selection was better for VHS, and began favor VHS machines even more heavily. In response, to the increased demand for VHS tapes, the rental outlets cut back still further on beta to favor VHS. Within a couple of years after rental outlets became common, I began to see stores eliminating their beta departments. Around that time, Sony dropped the price of beta VCRs to make them competitive with VHS, but by then it was too late for Sony to catch up.
If this story is true then Blu-Ray is dead. The adult film industry has a large impact on what electronic people will buy. If the adult film makers picked HD-DVD then people will buy HD-DVD players to see their favorite porno stars.
Sex sells electronics.
The real answer to why this may be is the following. HD-DVDs are cheaper to produce, and aside from a select few companies and organizations, most pornographers work out of very little liquidated flow, can't afford to muster up for blu ray when they're still unstable. But this is besides the point: the fact remains, the first combination reading player has been introduced by LG. It's only a matter of time before single-format players become obseleted, and deleted from society's memory. There's no real Betamax Vs. VHS war going on here, though it looks like it from afar. Warner brothers is already working on a disc that's going to be able to have either data type written to it, and this, in combination with combo players will make HD vs. Blu ray like VCDs vs DVDs. they'll both have different purposes, slight differences, but in todays date, most players will play both of them
I Bleed Scarlet
"I don't get that. You want a woman right? Above the age of 11?"
:)
Sometimes I forget that there's alot of eruo people here too
jk guys.
or I'll bomb you.
jk, really.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Ughh, I said it.
Both BluRay and HD-DVD shall die pretty quick deaths, at least in the first world. I mean, in Japan and South Korea for example, with a 50Mbps internet connection being normal, you can download an entire DVD in about 752 seconds. In some parts they have gigabit connections. The only physical medium that shall matter is your hard drive. I already see a future in which your cable provider gives you a proper home entertainment server system, with terabytes of hard drive space, and movies are delivered to your server and you watch them from there.
As for pr0n, well, people get it online anyway. What is more discreet than that?
What's with the massive anti-HD sentiment regarding porn? What happened when you guys see a woman in real life? Do you go "EWWWWWWW! She's so hi-def! I can see her pores!" Christ, if detail really turns you off that much why not just confine yourself to viewing hentai?
I think that just as most people (of the appropriate gender and orientation) prefer to see a naked woman in real life vs.a naked woman on DVD, so too would most people prefer to see a high-resolution picture of a naked woman vs. a picture which is so low-rez that you can actually see the individual pixels fairly clearly from 10 feet away (I can, at least.) Now don't get me wrong, that's not enough to make me want to rush out and buy an overpriced, over-DRM'ed piece of shit AND a new TV to use it with, but saying that HD is the TV equivalent of a microscope is just dumb. My laptop has a WUXGA (1920x1200) screen, and you'd have to be smoking some amazing crack to say that it makes naked women look uglier. It most certainly does NOT. It makes pictures--ALL pictures, regardless of whether or not they involve naked women--look vibrant and real in a way that makes owners of XGA-resolution laptops weep with envy. I suppose I COULD stare with my eyeball an inch from the screen and scream "AHHHHHHHH! I SEE A PIMPLE!" but... why? Just why would you do such a thing? Not to imply that imperfections bother me that much--on the contrary, I find that the plastic, 'pancake makeup' look to be pretty unappealing... I'm just saying, why would you go out of your way to look for such things?
HD isn't a microscope; it's simply a MUCH NICER PICTURE TO LOOK AT.
VHS vs Beta probably wasn't decided by porn, but even assuming it was, it is a different world now.
Before VHS, moving porn was essentially restricted to live shows and seedy theatres, both of which required sacrificing privacy both while watching and in the act of getting there and back. With home video playback, it became possible to be fairly discrete and... enjoy the show however you may wish. Obtaining the tapes could potentially be embarasssing. Once purchased, to be discrete hiding the tapes was required from time to time, but things were generally fairly private.
DVD rolls around, and any influence porn may have at this point is moot, there is no competitor to measure success or failure of DVD against.
Now we come to the question of BD vs HD-DVD with respect to porn. If porn is the deciding factor, the internet wins. With the prevalence of broadband, computer displays that are generally higher quality than TVs and sufficient for short distance viewing, and the fact it is the ultimate way to get content free and really discretely. It's no surprise that the first widely discussed HD porn was in a format only viewable mostly on computers. Filling the gap beyond broadband, cable and satellite providers provide adult pay-per-view, which is also more discrete than having to get a video.
I'd be interested to see how DVD sales have been in this era. And I know I stress discreteness and private viewing where there is a population that isn't so concerned with it, but the vast majority want to not advertise it, and thus leap on online acquisition of material.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Try going down on a girl for 45+ minutes, and suddenly the shaven thing makes a lot more sense.
Plus, you gotta admit that wet lips just look hella sexier than an indistinct patch of hair under which could be hiding, well, anything.
Another big factor which pushed VHS adoption over Beta was the capacity limitation on Beta. The two hour recording limit, which Sony was not keen to increase, was too short for recording American football games. Sports and pr0n tipped the balance. Of course with Tivo now, it'll just be pr0n.
Insert witty comment *here*. I'm fresh out of wit...
You can buy HD-DVDs with cash.
paintball
this will not be the case with hd dvd and blu ray, the internet was not a factor back in the vhs beta max days. porn is easyer to get and alot cheaper off the internet most of the time free.
I would suggest that maybe the technology could allow one to change the ethnicity of the actors to suit their preference, but the physical appearance is more than just skin color.
I've made my choice...
Hearts, stars and horseshoes! Clovers and Blue Ray! Pots of gold and rainbows! And me Red Ray! They're Magically Delicious!
It's a dream for those who wish to do auto-fellatio! ...Except you can't really see the face there..
In a remarkable coincidence, software engineer Mike DeKoker has also chosen HD-DVD as his favored high definition DVD format. This decision was made independently of any other external factors, including anything he may or may not have read on Slashdot lately. Really. He didn't even RTFA for fear it would bias his decision.
---------------
say what's on your mind - send anonymous email @ my website http://www.sayitt.com/
The world's different these days. It's been mentioned already above, but deserves reiteration: the widely available free/downloadable porn has been eating away at the porn industry's bottom line for several years. The market for porn DVDs is smaller than the market for porn vhs tapes as a result. Presumably the market for HD porn media will be even smaller, and therefore the porn industry will not be a deciding factor in the format wars. VHS was so popular with porn consumers mostly because they didn't have to jack off in porn theatres anymore. That's not really a problem right now.
We've already seen the lack of fervor in public over the DVD-Audio/SACD that the music industry tried awhile back as attempt to not only recreate the buying spree that followed the release of CDs, but also to try and lure consumers away from online distribution. It didn't work, and DVD-A/SACD can no longer be found in most stores. I can see no reason why the same thing won't happen with HD-DVD/Bluray. Vast numbers of the DVD-watching public have never even seen a DVD in its best light anyway, what with their general lack of progressive scan players and TVs, and they don't seem to care, so HD media will be a tough sell to any but the home theatre enthusiasts.
In the 70s and early 80s, most if not all porn was produced using film, and then, maybe, transferred to Betamax or VHS. So, our parents, if they went to the XXX cinema in town, enjoyed High Def Widescreen porn long before we did.
While most of that material would be considered crap by todays standards of beauty of the performers, or production values, since is done in Film, all that material is succeptible to be converted to HD-DVD.
I, for one, would pay for a good HD transfer of certain movies of that era, like "For the Love of Pleasure" or "The Devil in Ms. Jones" or "Behind the Green Door"
The only problem I forsee in this scheme is the tangle that the copyrights is now, with long gone companies being acquired by others time and again, and resellers in other countries geting non-clear rights.
The other useful effect of porn's entry in the HD-DVD camp is that their economies of scale will make Disk pressing Even cheaper, both for porn HD-DVDs as well as for regular content HD-DVDs
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
The Hardcoat is applicable to any disc media, even CD. It's just required for Blu-ray due to how close the optical media is to the surface.
HD DVD discs are much more readible with scratches, so the hardcoat hasn't been applied. But it certainly could be, especially for premium titles.
My video compression blog
It's not the impotent education system, drooping economy, disinterest in critical thinking or limp committment to family values that will eventually cause the downfall of American society, it's all the wasted sperm!
[...]
NUN:
Let the Pagan spill theirs
O'er mountain, hill, and plain.
HOLY STATUES:
God shall strike them down for
Each sperm that's spilt in vain.
EVERYONE:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite iraaaaaate!
Define porn. Also, the Kubrick estate and Warner Home Video might complain about at least this and this.
Can't they just master an HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc title under 8 GiB and stick it on standard DVD-9 (dual layer) media, in the same way that a lot of DVD players will play a 700 MB UDF image written onto a CD-R? In fact, this appears to be part of the HD DVD standard.
DVD-9 can already show hours of golden showers in 480-Pee. Enlarging an offering beyond that is easy: "box" sets.
O RLY? Then what's this Fecal Japan thing I keep reading about?
Meanwhile, HD-DVD disks are cheaper to make
Since every PS3 game made is pressed on a Blu-Ray disc, you have the ecenomy of scale that leads rapidly to much lower costs.
If HD-DVD discs are so much cheaper to make, how come you can get both discs for about the same price?
do not scratch as easily,
Boy, if you are tired of people bringing up technical deficencies with HD-DVD, imagine how mucb more tired Blu-Ray supporters are with this old chestnut which was solved before the format launched! Blu-Ray discs all have a coating that renders them more scratch proof than HD-DVD dscs.
have a more capable and author friendly development environment/UI system
Oh, now I see - Microsoft shill. OK, now that we know what you're up to it all makes sense. Sorry about the Zune, and the HD disc format that might have won had you actually supported it with the 360.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I can understand the public's desire to buy better quality, but not the industry's desire not to sell it. They used to be willing to sell VHS because it lost quality over their master copies, and I had the impression they were willing to sell DVD because they knew HD was coming and they were still selling lesser quality than they owned. If they're willing to sell HD, what do they have in store? Stereovision? Holography? Virtual Reality? At some point they're going to notice that our native sensory devices are saturated and that they can't churn us further without selling us sensory implants, since that will be the gating factor, not players.
Someone upthread suggested the motivation was new DRM. Might be. But the present DRM is hard for most normal people to circumvent. But I doubt even new stuff will be adequate to keep away the pirates... after all, absent ssl implants into our auditory and vision systems, somewhere it has to get decoded or we can't watch it. And if that happens, there's always someplace in the pipe you can tap into to get the quality picture.
Personally, I think they just want to churn hardware, not software. A new generation of player devices, a new generation of medium-x to medium-y transfer devices, even just raw disk to store all that stuff. And if that's the case, then it shouldn't matter if the stuff they're selling is the best quality, just better. After all, if they can sell us 2x quality, 4x quality, then 8x quality, they can sell it all 3 times over. If they jump straight to 8x quality in one step, they lose 2/3 of their potential revenue. (I'm just making up those multipliers. But my point is only to say that there's no motivation to compare their target to what users want unless they're fearful other vendors will go faster. And since other vendors want that same churning of the market...)
Of course it's possible they'll lower the prices of all the DVDs to clear inventory and find that most people who've wanted it just buy it all up, and then be surprised that we've saturated most people's field of vision and hearing adequately such that few people race for the new stuff. I love HD, but I was happy with SLP VHS, too. When I converted to DVD, it wasn't for a better picture (though I was happy to get that as a side-effect). It was (a) to avoid rewinding, (b) to avoid picture degradation and permit backups, (c) to compact the physical storage size in my house, and (d) to have something that might survive the thrust into the time of Big Brother DRM (since, if nothing else, I can play these things detached from the internet on standalone devices that don't phone home... one never knows if that will stay true in the modern world of DRM). None of these issues I bought DVD for appear to be improved by the move to HD, so except for a select few shows, I doubt I'll rush to upgrade... and maybe not even then. I wonder if I'm unique in feeling churn burnout.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
If it's true that there is no porn available on BR then HD just robbed the bank. No self respecting man would buy a BR if there were no HD porn for it. BR still rocks as a computer storage medium though.
I want an universal storage media. If one format forcibly restricts certain types of content and the other does not, the war is over.
Seriously, how does Sony expect to win if they cut off a section of the market that will exist regardless of their wishes?
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
All joking aside, the success of any new communication technology depends on it being useful for a variety (preferably a broad variety) of different purposes. This isn't a particularly new observation, but I've documented evidence for it elsewhere. For better or worse, one purpose that is often seen as desirable is education. One that is frequently seen as undesirable is pornography. I understand the reasons for the the widely shared bias that leads to these judgments. I'm a fan of education and haven't much use for most of the things that are currently regarded as pornography.
It remains, however, that pornography is an important benchmark in the success of new media. I frequently summarize the nature of this benchmark (see, for example http://evolutionarymedia.com/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi?WhyN ewMediaMatter) as three "laws of new media":
This pattern holds for a huge number of new media going back over 100 years. The nature of what has been deemed pornographic has changed along the way. Jazz, for instance, was once frequently described as pornographic. It was the porn of early records and broadcast radio. It remains that porn users are often one of the first mainstream sets of users to widely adopt new media, that their opinions and equipment purchases often drive other uses of the medium, and that the publicity generated by the anti-porn movement often raises awareness of the communication technology and its potentially useful applications.
I can understand SONY not wanting to invoke the wrath of the considerable anti-porn movement (religious, feminist, and otherwise), but history suggests that SONY is reducing BLU-Rays chances of success by taking a hard line on it.
Davis http://davis.foulger.net
Well, during the time of the VHS/Betamax there was no other way of getting your porn.. Now there are zillion ways of getting your porn cheap, and DVD porn also runs on HD-DVD/BR players, so there is no real need for a HD-DVD/BR version... This time it will definitly have no impact on the sales whatsoever...
Perhaps you should stop buying your porn in farm supply stores. Just a thought.
The real point is that HD-DVD discs can tolerate scratches better, because they are further out of focus than with Blu-Ray. A small scratch that will render a Blu-Ray disc unreadable might appear blurred and translucent enough to the HD-DVD optics to be ignored. Those of us who are wearing glasses know the effect.
To compensate for this, the Blu-Ray camp has introduced the scratch-proof coating. Of course, HD-DVD could use the same coating, making it even more resilient (or do without and save some manufacturing costs).
C - the footgun of programming languages
Ok... I currently am working on my Toshiba G30-219 which is HD-DVD and 1920x1200 display equipped. I have purchased a few HD-DVD discs for it so far. I also have a BluRay drive for my Media Center PC running Vista Ultimate Edition x64. So this leads me to ask... why does one win over the other. I have every intention of buying an HD-DVD drive for the Media Center PC as well. This will allow me to watch bother formats on the same PC/TV.
That being said, I am anxeously awaiting the release of dual format drives since I don't know why I should have two drives in the same computer for the same purpose. I don't see that the formats need to be mutually exclusive. Frankly, I think that each offers its' own benefits, and just as the disc producers (such as the firm I work for) have the option to encode MPEG-2, H.264, or VC-1, they should also be given the option to produce either HD-DVD for its' features or BluRay for its' features.
HD-DVD vs. BluRay should simply be a non-issue for the consumer. With an alternative drive, and a Java application written to handle the interpretation of the format, there is absolutely no reason a BluRay player could not handle HD-DVD.
So please everyone, instead of playing one format against the other, appear to be educated member of the technological community and back off of the political arena where you don't belong anyway. The goal here is to make it easy for the user. We are the people that know how. Give constructive feedback to the morons running the political side of operations and push them to converge.
I will guarantee one thing, a company that has no interest in the IP of films will in fact release a drive that handles both formats. Other video firms that don't care about HD-DVD vs. BluRay will release double sided discs hosting both formats on a single disc.
It is obvious to me that both formats have in fact won since both formats are in fact shipping video players capable of playing high definition video. The question is, which consumer electonic firm will be the first to ship either a dual drive device or the first to ship a dual media drive in a device to play both discs. That will make the consumer the winner too.
Oh, now I see - Microsoft shill. OK, now that we know what you're up to it all makes sense. Sorry about the Zune, and the HD disc format that might have won had you actually supported it with the 360.
Anyone who makes an accusation of shilling for MS based on so little evidence is clearly a Sony plant.*
*Just thought I'd better point out that this is a joke. It's just that I notice you're an Apple fan and I know they tend to have problems with humour, irony and not sucking other men's cocks.
If manufacturers had just held a porn producers brainstorming conference these specs could have been hashed out logically in the first place. But, instead, the manufacturers wanted to believe _they_ were in control.
I guess I should admit right up front, I don't own a single porno DVD. However, the times that I've been in porno store I don't remember ever seeing a porno that had this feature. Maybe they do and it's just not advertised, but you'd think that if it was such a feature that everybody was going nuts for, they'd have a big "THIS DVD HAS MULTIANGLE CHAPTERS!" right on the front...
As for normal movies not wanting the feature, I don't agree. I would have loved to have seen the battle of Helm's deep from the perspective of the Orcs!
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
The problem with HD DVD for porn is that it's only one mis-spacing away from becoming HDD VD, a nasty computer-related sexual infection.
By contrast, Blew..., er Blu Ray sounds *exactly* like a porn flick.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Porn drives technology, excluding it is, well, stupid. There are a lot of people that will buy HD over blue ray just because Sony won't allow porn on the format.
Locking yourself out of any market from the gate is bad business because your competitor won't and immediately grabs a lot of market share by default. As we all know porn is extremely profitable ; )
..in order to come out on top, Sony will have to get in bed with producers of pornography? ;)
hah, I'm hardly a MS shill -- I use not a single MS product I can think of. I'm typing this on my iMac though. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I'm pretty confident Apple is not going to make the mistake of committing exclusively to Sony's BluRay. I know they've generally been a supporter in the past, however that began before all the problems that BluRay has had, and the underwhelming reception of the PS3 by public. If you want to know my opinion, Apple isn't going to introduce BluRay to its machines before it introduces HD-DVD at the same time -- they're going to do a SuperDrive that does both.
So, as a publicly traded corporation, isn't Sony obligated to maximize shareholder value? If porn is a significant industry that can provide a viable revenue stream and help Blu-Ray compete against HD DVD, isn't Sony being negligent/acting against shareholder interests by prohibiting porn from being produced on Blu-Ray?
It doesn't seem to me that a corporation gets to have "morals" in a case like this. Porn is a legal, profitable, influential industry. To not allow people to use Blu-Ray because "the company" thinks porn is icky doesn't make business sense. I bet Sony equipment (cameras, editing decks, etc.) is used to make porn. Does Sony have a sticker on the side of all its cameras "Not to be used for porn."?
- Jasen.
Are we by the way expecting physical media to be a big part of the way Porn is distributed for very long?
If you see a rock violating the law of gravity, then the law is wrong, not the rock!
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Thank you. I've said the same thing to people arguing with me about Blur-Ray (they didn't even own one).
I'm a 2000 man.
This is slashdot, after all.. Hentai is about as close to real women majority here has gotten so far.
/. has been around for a long time. I'm willing to bet the majority of people here are over 25. They do not live in their mother's basement. Many of them are married and many of those have children. We're not a bunch of geeky kids any more. For chrissake, people are starting to call me sir! I hate to kill the stereotype of the typical slashdot virgin, but I'd be willing to bet that the majority of people here get as much sex as any other married person.
Okay,
Still, it's a funny stereotype, and we geeks are a self-deprecating bunch. I'd be willing to bet we'll still be joking about beign virgins when we're sixty with a half dozen grandkids.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
After all, porn is only really interesting for a few minutes at a time.
This leads to the clearest, most accurate definition of porn there is: If it no longer interests you after you come, it's porn.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
As I recall, this was before that thing called the internet, perhaps you've heard of it?
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
There you have it
Sex wins again......at least with me
I suspect the real killer-app for this technology would be the ability to superimpose celebrities onto the actors.
http://www.puretna.com/
EOM
Yes, very possibly, but you have to remember -- when we went from radio to film, some of the radio stars didn't make it, but now we have film stars. So it may kill particular pr0nstars, but it won't kill pr0n as a whole -- and the same is true for any of that.
I was pleasantly surprised with the HD I've seen -- pr0n and otherwise -- which has been vivid, lifelike, amazing to watch, and yet none of the detail bothered me at all. My guess is that if it looked good in DVD, it'll still look good in HD -- if they're covering up anything ugly, they're probably doing it with makeup and such, just like they would in the real world.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!